London Township Treaty (No. 6)

Historical Context

The area covered by the treaty was originally within the territory of the Neutral Confederacy, a political and cultural union of several Iroquoian communities. In the early 1650s, Seneca and Mohawk warriors destroyed and dispersed the Confederacy and forced its survivors to migrate to the south and west. In their new locations, the Neutral people were assimilated by several other Indigenous nations.

Did you know?
The Lawson Site is a pre-contact, two-hectare village in the northwest section of modern London, Ontario. It was occupied by an estimated 2,000 Neutral Iroquoians from about 1500 to 1525. The site is on a plateau and is naturally protected on three sides by steep slopes running down to the junction of Snake Creek and Medway Creek. The inhabitants augmented their village’s defences with multiple rows of palisades on top of man-made earthworks. In 2004, the Lawson Site became the first archeological site in Ontario to be placed on the Canadian Register of Historic Places. Excavations have found more than 500,000 artifacts, as well as the remains of at least 19 longhouses.

In 1791, the British divided the province of Quebec into Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) in the west and Lower Canada (present-day Quebec) in the east. In 1793, Upper Canada’s first lieutenant-governor, John Graves Simcoe, was scouting the colony for a permanent location for the new province’s capital. When he came to the forks of the river known as Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River) to the Ojibwe — which early French explorers had named La Tranche (The Trench) — he immediately seized on it as the site for the future capital. He named the site London and renamed the river the Thames.

In 1793, Simcoe temporarily moved the capital of Upper Canada from Newark (present-day Niagara-on-the Lake), due to its vulnerability to American attack, to a new town laid out along the north shore of Lake Ontario. He named it York (modern Toronto) in honour of the King’s son, the Duke of York. Simcoe had a parliament and other government buildings erected.

Negotiations

Simcoe had not forgotten the site he had selected earlier on the Thames River. He directed Deputy Indian Agent Colonel Alexander McKee to negotiate another land surrender, concurrent with his efforts to secure Sombra Township. McKee had been born around 1735 in what is now western Pennsylvania to a Shawnee mother and Irish father, and was raised in the ways of his mother’s people. He married a Shawnee woman and became a fur trader and Indian agent in the Ohio River area. During the American Revolution, McKee sided with the British. After the war, he moved to the Detroit area and continued to support Britain’s Indigenous allies in their failed efforts against American advances into their territory. Because the Indigenous peoples of the area trusted and respected McKee, he was instrumental in arranging the terms of Treaty 116 in 1786, McKee’s Purchase in 1790 and the Sombra Township Treaty (Treaty No. 7) in 1796.

McKee easily secured a settlement with the Chippewa of the Thames River. They reached a provisional agreement on 29 September 1795 for a tract of land 12 miles square (about 31 kilometres square), with a long irregular section protruding from the southeast corner along the north bank of the Thames River. The purchase was confirmed almost a year later, on 7 September 1796. McKee signed on behalf of the King, while 10 “principal Chiefs, Warriors, and People of the Chippewa Nation” signed for the local Indigenous people.

For signing the treaty, the Chippewa received merchandise worth 1,200 pounds. Included were 1,318 blankets; hundreds of metres of various kinds of cloth, along with thread and ribbon; 72 pairs of scissors; 33 handkerchiefs; 64 hats; 120 ivory combs and 180 horn ones; 120 mirrors; 54 trunks; 67 hoes; 1,440 fish hooks and an equal number of flints; 72 pen knives and 400 butcher ones; 3,456 pipes; 465 pounds of tobacco; 124 fire steels; brass, copper and tin kettles; 15 guns for chiefs; 11 rifles; 278 pounds of gunpowder; and 2,100 pounds of shot and ball. The Commissary Department furnished a bullock and rum for a celebratory feast as was the custom after signing treaties.

Outcome

Although the British had acquired land for a new capital, Governor-in-Chief Lord Dorchester did not support it and York remained the capital. Despite this, the land was lost to its Chippewa inhabitants. It was surveyed as London Township and later opened to white settlement, which began in 1826. Today, the City of London is in the treaty area.

Commemoration and Recognition

On 7 September 2016, on the 220th anniversary of the signing of the London Township Treaty, Chief Leslee White-Eye raised the flag of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation at London City Hall. The flag raising followed one of the key tenants of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, which suggested developing awareness of the history of treaties and Indigenous rights. Chief White-Eye said that the flag raising was “a positive step towards building a respectful relationship between the City and Chippewas of the Thames.”

Chief Patrick Madahbee of the Anishinabek Nation Grand Council added his support to Chief White-Eye for her initiative. “In doing so,” Madahbee noted, Chief White-Eye is “acknowledging and reinforcing that we all have a responsibility to inform and educate on the history of this land and its people — locally, regionally and nationally. It makes for a better understanding that we are all part of a treaty relationship.”